


Sunlight and Lovers

by ElizaHiggs



Series: Amused, Impressed, Smitten [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Canon Compliant, F/M, Love, POV Remus Lupin, Pottermore, Remus is really innocent, So much angst, Stream of Consciousness, Werewolves, Wizard Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 05:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6643891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizaHiggs/pseuds/ElizaHiggs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Remus is wayyy too busy feeling sorry for himself to notice who Tonks has fallen for | Remus POV</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunlight and Lovers

**Author's Note:**

> Such werewolf angst. Comments and thoughts welcome, as always. 
> 
> Any lines (mostly in italics) you recognize are from Pottermore
> 
> I do not own any of these characters

She's like sunlight.

Sunlight, that draws him down into the kitchen whenever she arrives ahead of an Order meeting to catch up with her long-lost cousin Sirius, and if he's intruding on their family time, well. He already knew he was a selfish person.

He tries to give them a few moments, sometimes, when he hears the kettle on, before he comes wandering down the stairs to join them. But largely, he cannot help himself. Her presence feels _good_ , warm and bracing, like a shot of whiskey, and he imagines he knows how a kingfisher must feel spreading its wet feathers to the heat of the sun.

A Dark Creature basking in her light, warming away the dank chilliness of the House of Black and Sirius's depression.

He thinks this way long before he realizes that he's in love with her.

On rarer occasions, whenever Order meetings fall on an evening when she doesn't have to be up early for work the next day and neither of them has Order duty (and one of them isn't locked away for full moon), he enjoys the opportunity to couple her warmth with something a little stronger than tea, after the Weasleys have finally retired, and it's just him, her, and Sirius left in the low-lighted kitchen, and Sirius breaks out the firewhiskey.

He expects lowered inhibitions are a large part of the reason many people drink, but a conscionable werewolf simply has so _many_ inhibitions to maintain that he suspects the freedom of drunkenness is especially pleasurable for him - at least, in the safety of trusted company and the release of the waning moon.

Of course, lowered inhibitions bring with them heightened temptations, the strongest of which is the urge to touch her: to brush her arm, or shoulder, or lower back; to indulge in her physical warmth the way he already indulges in her laughter, and he worries that, like Icarus, he's pushing his luck, but then again, touch seems so _natural_ to her - he remembers the way she went to shake his hand the day they met, even though he was fairly certain she was terrified of him.

(The height of selfishness: imposing his presence on a woman who clearly fears him, merely because he finds her own presence soothing. He justifies himself - he always has justifications - by reminding himself that they are colleagues, of a sort, and that they must work together, and that if he is very quiet, and respectful, perhaps she will tolerate him.)

As the weeks passed, he began to think he might have imagined her terror, if her amiable ease with him was anything to go by (as, perhaps, was her willingness to get blasted with him and Sirius in the evenings), and so he convinces himself that perhaps she is one of those rare individuals who doesn't mind physical contact with a werewolf. And even now, when they touch often enough that he feels a little guilty, she initiates nearly all of it.

He realizes he is in love with her just before Christmas, the first time Dumbledore places them on an overnight assignment together, and the prospect of wallowing in her cheery laughter for an entire evening sets his chest purring with satisfaction, and his fingers clench and unclench as he wonders if - maybe - she'll even let him hold her hand for part of the evening, just as she'd taken his hand sometimes, on a mission, to lead him through the winding halls of the Ministry.

She winks at him from across the table, and he instantly flushes with shame. _Disgusting_ , his mind spits at him.

_She'll be disgusted._

But the months go by, and she remains mercifully unaware of his increasingly inappropriate feelings, an ignorance for which he is grateful, because it means he can continue to steal affection on the pretense of friendship, and because he doesn't think he can bear to watch the smile on her face turn to revulsion when she realizes that a greying, derelict _werewolf_ , more than a dozen years her senior, lies awake at night and thinks of her.

He knew she'd fall in love, eventually - some young, handsome wizard. An auror, probably, someone Mad-Eye would approve of. _But not yet_ , he'd begged the universe. Let him have just a little more time, to pretend that when she smiles at him, it's because he himself is the one who makes her happy.

And so the universe had given him a year of her friendship, and now, sitting together outside the house of a Death Eater on another Order mission, how it decides to repay him for his selfishness.

_He's still handsome, isn't he, even after Azkaban._

Never had he supposed he might be forced to watch her fall in love at such close vantage, with another Order member - with his oldest friend - and a blind panic rises up within him and for a moment his own bitterness chokes him silent.

"I suppose you've fallen for him, then?" he asks, trying to sound casually curious and failing miserably. "He always got the women."

Instantly, she is furious: he sees her eyes flash and fears he's given himself away.

_You'd know perfectly well who I've fallen for if you weren't too busy feeling sorry for yourself to notice._

The words echo in his ears, and for a second, his brain cannot process what she's said. And then, all he can feel is joy, like his sun has burst. She loves him.

His arms make a sudden movement, as if they intend to reach out for her, to take her into them, but he checks himself as logic returns with all its frostbite, and he realizes the cruel joke the universe has played on him: he'll suffer, yes, as he'd known he would; but so will she.

She sees the torment on his face. "Remus?" she says tentatively, and her voice breaks, and it breaks his heart all over again. But between breaking her heart and ruining her life - or worse - he knows the only option he has.

"I'm sorry," he says, and the words sound wrong, like his voice is too hoarse, too lonely, too tired of running, to properly form the words he needs to say. "I'm not sure what you mean." And he turns from her, and drops his face into one hand, sure that he cannot look at her and not fall apart. For a moment she doesn't say anything, but then her warm fingers slip into his free hand and hang on.

"It's okay," she whispers. "I'm not going anywhere." And he's grateful – miserably, selfishly grateful – that even while he breaks her heart she won't abandon him to his loneliness, and he holds onto her hand for dear life.


End file.
